Under The Bridge
by Prince Nightingale
Summary: What does Shendu discover when he takes a walk in Valmont's mind? A fic about Valmont's feelings and the influence of his past. Decided to do something with this oneshot I wrote ages ago. Chapter 1 is the edited oneshot. DISCONTINUED.
1. Chapter 1

**So this is an old JCA oneshot that I edited to provide a foundation for a fic. The fic will probably be about 4/5 chapters, not sure yet. **

**DISCLAIMER: Do not own Jackie Chan Adventures, or any of the fandoms that I might randomly reference in this fic, like Deathnote in the case of this chapter. (A cookie for anyone who can spot the Deathnote reference). In the meantime, read, enjoy, and drop a review :)**

**Warning: Strong language and dark themes, mainly drug abuse, but also prostitution, underage sex, and various others to come.**

**But while this is an adult fic, these themes are treated with sincerity and taste. In other words, it's not all graphic and gross.**

In the absence of Shendu, Valmont kept things methodical. His days were a knot of fierce blanches, gulps of consciousness in which he felt the thud of Shendu's bulk against his mind, until it shortly hauled him back under. But upon the burst of the Cannery door, and their shamefaced scuttle back into their rat-hole hideout after yet another failed operation, Valmont felt that demon spirit sag despondently and withdraw.

And Valmont was given time. Time in which he marched furiously to his study, slammed the door and lit up a fag, as the sun began to sink through the sky. Took off his tie and blazer and swung them over his chair. Took off everything else in favor of black satin Ralph Lauren slacks and a clean burgundy shirt. Bagged his suit and yanked the separate laundry bag of his enforcers down into the foyer; he'd drop them off at the drycleaners himself early tomorrow, confident his employees would blithely doze til 11. Put on the kettle and took out the trash. Made coffee. Abandoned it upon getting stuck into the washing up, the precariously balanced mountain of dirty crockery courtesy of his circumstantial roommates. He scrubbed it all up with grim efficiency, stopping only when the kitchen was naked, its dull grey surfaces staring back at him silently.

At which point he was dirty, and so decisively turned his back on the dead gaze of his stale surroundings, and made for the bathroom, flung on the bath tap and tore off his black satin Ralph Lauren slacks and clean burgundy shirt. Crouched in the tub, armed with a luffa and a bar of soap, he resumed scrubbing.

But on these summer evenings, when the milky sunlight dripped into the shimmering expanse of San Francisco bay, time stretched out as far as the Pacific, and method failed him. Valmont kept the Fish Cannery stark, snatching up any traces of character that came with human inhabitance as quickly as they were dropped, but the immense, slackening ache inside him never relented. All out of things to do, it took him walking. Aimlessly he wafted through his current residence, long evening shadows pursuing his hard, dank frame.

A lewd crow from Finn echoed down the long hall, and he found himself skulking towards the doorway of one of the huge industrial rooms. Here, the ocean was mere feet away, and the evening sunlight plummeted from the large windows and flooded the vast grey floor. In the midst of the torrent was Finn, poised stealthily over the pool table that he and Ratso had hauled rather ridiculously across the pier upon their moving in. The Irish man had discarded his white blazer, and unbuttoned his pink shirt further than usual, revealing his pale chest. His trademark medallion batted light impressively across the room. His sleeves were rolled up and his gaunt arms were littered with tacky wristbands and chains, and seemed a little less sullen in the sunshine. The exertions of the day had wrung the gel from his thickly plastered hair, and a few strands had been tussled to the front. He looked…graceful.

Ratso himself was not escaping the torrent either, strolling up and down the length of the table, vaguely examining his options. Chow resided behind the makeshift bar directly under one of the huge windows. Having poured three large gin and tonics, he hoisted his skeletal body up onto the window sill and proceeded to holler some dry quip at his friends that Valmont did not understand. Finn was the first to see Valmont standing there, and the amused twinkle in his eye slipped into one of sultry confusion. He glanced at his boss, whose disheveled white hair shrouded his pretty blue eyes like thorns and swamped his broad shoulders in a matted damp mess, clothes clammy and suckered to his ridiculously broad torso after being pulled on too early. He confirmed that it was indeed Valmont and not Shendu, briefly searched for significance in that, and redirected his attention to the game. He struck sharply and the balls shot across the sunny velvet.

"Something the matter, Big V?"

Receiving no response, Finn joined Chow at the bar and took up his gin and tonic. Chow nailed his combat boot lightly between the Irish American's shoulder blades, eliciting a playful swat of Finn's arm.

"Yo Valmont, check it out…" Finn delved under the bar and retrieved a selection of liquors. "St Paddy's day keepsakes."

"Get em while they're hot." hollered Ratso, bounding to collect his drink.

"Get em while they're _cold_."

"Just get em before Retro Seamus here gets em."

Finn threw an ice cube at his skinny friend in response, and Valmont wondered when they'd managed to get the freezer-fridge working.

Chow smirked at Ratso and dropped down from the window like a bat. "Rosie forgiven you yet?"

Ratso took his drink and toppled into one of the shitty plastic chairs they'd found in the storage room. Valmont had taken the best furniture for his office, naturally.

"Hell no." The Italian muttered. "You know how she feels about Mello and his boys. Rosie ain't a businesswoman, you know that."

Finn snorted. "You should be lucky she ain't taking some of those creeps up on their offers. A girl like her could make good money on Mello's arm. And it's not like you bring the bread in."

"Ain't goin down that road again. We got too much to lose."

"If you say so."

"I'm serious! And anyway Pedro'll have my ass on a stick if I get his sister back on that scene."

"Pot Kettle black?" Observed Chow sardonically. "Pedro's been dealing Kevalov's source for the best part of 5 years. Don't see why you should be putting up half his extended family in that trailer of yours while he sits pretty in a penthouse in Puerto Rico."

"yeah well. I like her extended family. And Rosie's gonna need help with the baby if Shendu's gonna keep draggin us halfway around the world every week."

This motioned a cloud of grief to reside over the three in their plastic chairs. Chow glanced warily at Valmont over his shades, then looked down at the bar surface, scratching at a nugget of dirt absently-mindedly. Finn rubbed his temples then craned his head back. "Ugghh." After a few moments, his eyes snapped open. "Malorie wants me back."

"Would you take him up on it?"

"Don't I owe it to him? Hell, given the shit I've caused, I can see myself walking into a trap."

"I wouldn't worry. All his employees are two-faced assholes; you Irish got no sense of loyalty. I mean how many others would have straight-up quit during a major transfer for Spanky Blue-Eyes with a cane?"

At this point, Chow received a sharp kick in the shin from Finn, reminding him that Valmont was still in the room. Their superfluous boss flung said blue eyes to the ground so fast they might have cut through the pier to the water beneath. He was embarrassed, and not sure why he was still standing there. Outside, a long day of fishing was being packed up and steadily withdrawn. Voices parted; footsteps trickled away. Boats were left bobbing on the water silently. This was how it always was. The Fish Cannery had no main lighting system, so its huge stark rooms were left to slowly lose their color and succumb to darkness. Valmont had a headache. The tumor in his mind weighed down on him, so that he felt like he was under the pier, submerged in the dark water, waiting to drown. Instead, he was here, drowning in something else. He wanted to sit down, but there were only three plastic chairs in this gradually fading room.

Finn was the first to speak, forcing himself to tear his contrite gaze away from his boss. "Ahem. In any case, Malorie'd probably stick me in Thailand. And they got some price on my head."

"The needle?" Enquired Ratso.

Finn held an unfathomable stare at the table. "We're pricey, but we're worth it, ain't we Big V?"

'Big V' raised his head. "What?"

"Never mind." Finn delved into his pocket, before roughly distributing three bags of brittle white substance. "And let's not forget my upping the revenue of the competition. Not that I have much choice. Saoirse or Sterrin would hand me right over to Malorie if they caught me at their burrows. So there; the Irish do have loyalty you little bastard."

Chow's face remained sunny and vacant behind his glasses.

"Better not let on you been buying from another source." Remarked Ratso, claiming one of the bags.

"Hey genius, he's the biggest crackhead in California. They're hardly gonna expect him to have gone dry."

Finn raised his eyebrows as he unwrapped his pipe. "Still, if I admit it they might stick me in China, and then it'll be bad tempered cops and greasy overblown food on top of death by lethal injection."

This sufficed in provoking Chow, who smirked and jammed his heel into Finn's toes. This conversation flaked into laughter, and Chow shook his head, looking down into his empty glass. "Man you're crazy for taking up any of those options. And I know you would, so don't pretend to be Mr Responsible now that you can afford a colour TV and a crummy little fiat. You're desperate, if a little more sane than you were 5 years ago. You'd risk the Thai authorities and let Malorie sell you down the river tomorrow if you thought there was a buck in it for you, and you call _me_ a whore."

Finn's eyes sparkled. "And you'd start working nights again?"

"Hey, it's a living."

Finn set to preparing his pipe. "You're wrong by the way. I wouldn't face those Thai fuckers again. I don't like needles; if I wanted to die I'd let Shendude do the honours. You know what? I'll take him to Thailand for protection. I'll get back in Malorie's good books, no one gets puts to sleep, and if we gave Shendu a share of the product he might just chill out and forget about this whole world domination business."

"I dunno," mumbled Ratso, "Never heard of dragons chasing dragons…"

"That's opium, you dumb fuck." They laughed, and gradually the laughter died and their attention rolled towards Valmont, who stood rooted at the far window, pretending not to listen. The bright evening light had dwindled, and the sky had a big, ugly red rash. Nothing could remove this feeling from him – the feeling of having run aground, like a ship on a hot shore. Valmont had simply stopped; ravished and left for dead in his own lonely head. And yet, ridiculously, he was permitted to surface from time to time, to watch the sun fall in on them.

He caught their stares in the corner of his eye, and the feeling inside him throbbed painfully.

"Fucking Shendu." Muttered Chow.

And then Ratso changed the subject to football, and they welcomed it and carried on smoking. Valmont didn't want to be around when the darkness finally took them, but where else was there to go? The thing inside him was always heavy; he felt like a fool hauling it around. It was this god damn time, between afternoon and night, that its great aching bulk drove him deliriously through the corridors of the cannery; flip-flopping around like a dying fish. Because he had nowhere else to go, as the sun drowned and darkness painfully accumulated. He had nothing to pursue, and no one to talk to. No one with which to share this burden; no one who could understand.

He shivered in his semi-damp clothes. There was something stuck in his throat, and the headache was so bad he wanted to cry. Give up on the sliver of time Shendu smarmily handed him and go to sleep. But in bed he would only shiver or sweat, toss and turn and _think_. That was all this trashy, substandard time was good for; thinking and drowning. He turned to his employees, now fuzzy in the half-light. Finn's medallion had stopped twinkling, and his pants were a contemptible grey. The flame of his lighter as he relit his loverose pipe illuminated those course, cold lips, curled in a trampy, commonplace smirk. Without a word, Valmont left the little party.


	2. Chapter 2

**So this chapter is an abstract one, and I don't generally do abstract, so sorry if it's sucky. I'm trying to describe what Valmont's mind might look like without actually creating much of an image. If that makes sense.**

**The significance of the song he sings will become clear later, so don't tear your hair out too much about the ambiguity of the whole thing. In the meantime, check out the song on youtube. It's 'Marina's Song' from the anime adaptation of The Little Mermaid. Not a patch on Sebastian ofcourse, but a very beautiful song nonetheless, and inspiration for the tone of this chapter.**

**Reviews will be appreciated muchly :)**

**Oh and I don't own anything. Of course.**

Half an hour later, he found himself back in the bathroom. This wearisome evening was almost over; he figured he might as well get ready for bed. He was accustomed to the grim reflection of a subdued Shendu that met him in the mirror, though for all his focusing on his own sallow face, he found it difficult to tear his gaze away from those fiendish red eyes burning in anticipation. Waiting…

It occurred to Valmont that he didn't know what he wanted – to feel alone for once, or to feel a little less alone…for once.

There was always a compromise.

He watched his hands mechanically open his toiletry draw – there was no way his stuff was sharing a shelf with that of his enforcers – and quickly retrieve his needle. The contents of his draw were grievously out of place. He snarled; if any of those morons had been ferreting around in here he'd – his heart sank when he realized it had probably just been Shendu, looking for potion ingredients or some perverse reason. After some digging, he found what he was looking for. A small white bottle, the label long since discarded.

He figured a little meth would do him good. Shendu had driven him away from it; with the demon inside him calling the shots, Valmont could dissolve into almost non existence, and Shendu paid no heed to the demands of his mortal body. At first it had been tough. Even on methadone, the withdrawals were hellish, especially after a long day of Shendu's dominance and thus no drug in his system. At least that had given Valmont something to do in the evening – crawl into his bathroom and deliver a fine dose to his veins that coaxed him sweetly off to sleep. But as the weeks turned into months, and Shendu's periods of dominance grew longer and more intensive, Valmont stopped feeling that rush of purpose upon his emergence from the darkness, and methadone was no longer part of his life. The result was ultimately just more empty space imposed upon him, gouged into his life.

He thought he might as well use up the last of the prescription, if there was a shadow of a chance it might relieve him of some of this misery. Before he had managed to remove the cap, he noticed something new in his draw. Tentatively, he lifted it out.

It was a small glass decanter, tinged blue and engraved with cursive lettering conveying some irrelevant initials. Valmont may not have been a businessman, but he was familiar enough with the format of this to deduce its substance. His blood ran cold.

His hands fumbled for the wrinkled post-it that had no doubt been attached to the bottle.

_What up Big V_

_Figured you could use the real McCoy for a change._

_Not into this stuff myself, but I know guys who know guys and yeah._

_Lemme know if you need any more. Just add it onto my salary._

_No need to thank me._

_F_

Trepidation pooled in the pit of his stomach as he eyed the bottle in his trembling hand. He had switched to methadone when his doctor had started him on opiate replacement therapy a couple of years ago. He stared at the portion of bottle below the neck; its cold blue heart. _Has it really been a mere two years since I last held you?_

His headache stirred behind his eyes, breaking his chain of thought. A malevolent voice rumbled softly, "Are you ready for bed, Valmont?"

The crimelord peered around, realizing the sun had finally gone out. Slowly, achingly, he put the bottle back. His confidence grew and he closed the draw firmly, and rigidly walked away. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Nothing did.

Shendu stewed with bitterness in the confines of Valmont's head. Today's struggles for the upper hand had been pathetic and futile as always, and the recurring failure hacked away at him like a knife. The demon spirit squirmed; his evening doze had been highly effective in recovering his strength, but now his psychophysical frame was brittle and groggy with lack of activity and the inevitable pang of disappointment that returned immediately with consciousness. At this point, his bitterness was manifesting itself in the macabre craving for entertainment.

Valmont's bedroom was a scant deposit of hefty, beautiful furniture. A skinny lamp in the far corner cast a warm glow on the blue velvet curtain, the vast mahogany surfaces and the ebony black linen. True to his method, the crimelord crept through the half-light and slid into his satin bottoms, then, perching on the bed before the intricate Victorian dresser, he took up his comb and began to carefully tame large portions of the matted locks. Shendu watched from the mirror with a patient smirk, until the mortal had finished and swept back the thick white silk with a redundant sigh. He flicked a switch and the lamplight died, leaving him only to slip between the dark sheets, curl onto his side, and barrenly wait for sleep.

Shendu was waiting too. Waiting for the mortal's mind to slacken with the soft ushers of approaching fatigue; for the tightly constrained mental faculties to slip into tangy little rivulets. When the moon came up and Valmont's shell was soft enough, he would penetrate.

The moon was a skinny, sickly sickle that was quickly swallowed by cloud. And darkness dropped, like thick black veils on all four walls. Silence. The enforcers had probably drowned.

And then a light night breeze caressed the curtain. The pale head stirred against the pillow, and a soft song unfurled from beneath the thick splayed nest.

"When a mermaid comes of age,

She begins a different kind of life…"

The bare shoulders beneath the thick locks shifted restlessly as Valmont nuzzled his pillow. His soft voice rasped again:

"Childish games are left far behind

She prepares to be a bride…

"Her schooldays are in the past now

Her heart becomes her new guide

It will portal the way to love eternal…."

The lost little whisper was drawn into a high, delicate note. Inside Valmont, Shendu peered down through his dark confines, where a haze of melancholy blues eventually petered into black.

_They are coming._

He had seen them many times before, looming below him as he sprawled absently in the gloom of Valmont. Dark, shapeless things drifting through the abyss. They passed by, slowly and regularly, and were once again lost in the darkness. Sometimes they were so close that Shendu could never be sure that the huge entities, the evidence of which only ever amounting to great folds cast in the emptiness, and a strange shudder in the atmosphere, was not a mere illusion.

Nor could he be sure of those lonely, haunting howls he heard from time to time when such illusions occurred.

Smirking to himself, he uncoiled his lithe form, and like an infectious parasite, pursued them.

They always took him to the most interesting places.

"Wisdom only comes with time,  
The road to love is paved with broken hearts…

"If I am to reach my goal, I must stake everything  
In my true destiny, no matter what the price…"

Valmont's mouth drifted shut. Vaguely disturbed, he shifted in his shallow sleep.

"mm….ah….Shendu…you're doing it again." He murmured softly.

Shendu smirked as he capered stealthily through Valmont's dark caverns; elaborate, neglected, waiting to be ravished. "Yes…"

Valmont squirmed from the uncomfortable invasion. "Stop…"

"Why do you sing of mermaids, Valmont?"

"S'just a song I know. It helps me sleep…"

"Yes…I did wonder…

"Earlier, mortal, you were examining a new decanter. I have not seen it in our drawer before. Tell me what it holds. It may prove instrumental in my potion composition."

"Get back…back where…you sleep…"

Shendu chuckled. "I am in no mood to sleep, Valmont. I will take a walk."

This was not the first time Shendu had decided to take a walk. But there had only been a handful of incidents prior; usually Shendu was too tired and contemptuous to roam.

"You know, Valmont," the demon remarked, skulking through the long halls, "mermaids are not the romantic creatures of which you sing."

Valmont sighed into his sheets. "I suppose you mean to tell me mermaids existed once."

"Perhaps."

"And that they were vile, ghastly creatures like you."

"I am a fire demon. I know little of what lurks in the deep blue, or once did. Sister Bai Tsa ruled that kingdom. Down there, monsters spawned."

Valmont mewled sleepily. "Nothing more monstrous than Bai Tsa herself, I daresay."

"Do not count on it Valmont." Shendu's sibilant croak echoed from a strange, forgotten place inside him. "I certainly did not."

"Shendu…" Valmont whispered. "Shendu where are you going?...Sh-shendu…aahhh…" His little rasps were futile, cornered by the stone silence, lost in utter darkness.

Shendu's voice sounded again, a ghostly echo dancing off strange walls. "Land accommodates some terrible things, no doubt…but the ocean…if one were to venture out far enough; journey deep enough….until the sunbeams starve and the water turns black…" He took a sharp turn, Valmont's pain rippling behind him.

"A god on earth does not think about it. He stuffs it away in a panic and lets the ocean keep its terrible secrets. After all, is that not what the ocean is for?"

"What are you talking about, Shendu?" Amidst the thick fatigue, Valmont twitched in irritation. He wanted Shendu to withdraw and sleep; _he_ wanted to sleep.

"Well well Valmont…I think I've found what was in that decanter…"

Valmont found himself being teased by the faint sensation of rustling, and a somber, dimly lit arrangement registered behind his eyes. Suddenly he knew where the demon was.

"Nnn-No!" He rasped. "Don't…Don't…"

"What have we here then? Little locked up treasures, that is certain – what is that festival you mortals fawn over…Christmas, is it not? I believe Christmas has come early for me." Valmont could feel the thunder of a low laugh; the heat of the dragon's smirk contaminating a tender place inside him.

"You will do well to get out a there." Hissed Valmont through clenched teeth. "_Now._"

"Oh but it is so beautiful here, mortal." Sneered the demon spirit. "It is lit so darkly; it is worthy of my temple. And what are these neglected little tinder boxes, these splendid little gifts for me? Why do you keep them here, arranged so poignantly in this lonely, beautiful chamber?"

"You are making no sense, Shendu. Retire to your area and let me sleep."

Shendu had no such intentions, and merely scuttled closer to his findings, his great ornate head leering, ruby eyes fretted into a thousand dancing shades of red.

"Is it mermaid treasure, Valmont?"

"Get. Out."

"Or perhaps," Drawled the spirit, "it is where the monsters are locked up…" He extended a lecherous claw and silkily drew it towards one of the mysterious finds…

"NO!" With a crash, he was flung back, hitting the wall, and the treasures scattered. "Don't you dare you fucking parasite!" Rasped the mortal, flying up in his bed. "What is this shit, what's it about, your own fucking problems?

"Because you were never a true God, were you Shendu?" Valmont spat bitterly. "You were only ever an insecure fool! You were always terrified of what was under the water, weren't you? I'll bet you didn't dare go near it incase you found something inconceivably evil, worse than you, worse than anything! You spent the whole time terrifying others because you were terrified yourself!"

The walls shook fiercely around Shendu as everything in the mortal roared against the intrusion. Disgusted, Shendu seized one of the dark boxes from the maelstrom of Valmont's fury, and like lightening, brought his claw down on it.

A mighty gasp was torn from the mortal; his eyes flew open – froze – and then flew shut as he was drawn under.


	3. Chapter 3

When the chaos subsided, Shendu smirked, and threw his magnificent head around to take in his discovery. It seemed as though he was staring at a wall that had been ravished with color; loud traffic reds and soapy neon violets, and millions of golden flecks stippling the endless canvas like fireflies. The lights bled together like an oil painting, coming to die where the dark shape of a pier ended, and a sumptuous satin sea began, shimmering like a sequin gown, and further up, intangible black.

_What is this? What in the name of…ahhh…_

Shendu's questions tailed off as he was overcome with an inexplicable surge of happiness. And then he became aware of the noise. A series of sing-song laughs as resonant and default as silence, as if they'd been living cozily in his ear since the beginning of time.

"_We all live in a yellow submarine!"_

"_A yellow submarine, a yellow submarine!"_

Maybe they had indeed, always been laughing. For these were not Shendu's ears, but Valmont's. This was Valmont's memory, in which the demon occupied a phantom… a phantom of the crimelord himself.

Voices found faces as Valmont turned, his big, dirty white locks swinging cheerfully around the cobalt eyes from which Shendu stared. The weasel-like bodies of vicious bland blokes, and the starved, jutting curves of a handful of girls, decent features lost in shocks of raven hair; spry, monstrous legs extending from their tiny cocktail dresses. A pasty, muffin-like lass occupied a neighboring bench, her abused little knob of chin trembling in its sea of young gullet and cigarette smoke. This was a band of rag-clad randomers, lost gypsies perhaps, to whom the world was as blank as the ocean, and as universally serene as the haze of artificial light.

"Bright Bright Brighton!" Sang one of the raven girls, and caught a non-existent current of air, before her papery body toppled into another's lap.

"It's brilliant." Surged the thick voice of the young Valmont, and Shendu was almost paralyzed under the scincerity of that feeling. Through the eyes of his host, he looked down at the strapping chest that usually fluttered madly up and down when panic attacks seized him in the middle of the night and jolted them both awake, to the infuriation of Shendu and the embarrassment of Valmont.

But in this place, the panic was gone. The body below him was like a sculpture, extending lithely over some hard uncomfortable bench, to be rooted at an unfathomable distance by two long slovenly legs, exposed knees jutting from a pair of leering rips to point harshly at the black horizon.

Whatsmore, the tough, spruce body was now drooling with rags. Ciggarette burns sullied a sub-white T-shirt and soggy blue velvet trousers that were festering with mold. Following closer investigation, Shendu found his host to be tarted up with various pointless embellishments; an Armani sheepskin waistcoat; giant plastic rings over velveteen fingerless gloves, and an ugly throng of bangles only fit for particularly tasteless magpie. Several fat Alligator belts sluggishly circled his trim hips. Diamond-studded choker; modcloth bandana; twinkling naval jewel. And everything had a price tag, no doubt freshly stolen for the decoration of this precocious tramp. Shendu wondered why Valmont, though clearly just as foolish in youth as he was now, hadn't stolen anything substantial to keep himself warm. But despite the exposed flesh of his arms and lower abdomen, this priced up tramp body lounging in its nest of valuables, was bloated with a loud, musical mood, and Shendu trembled under it.

His company cackled and flapped around, cigarettes hanging from various slack mouths, and the dead fingers of Shendu's white haired rogue were suddenly sending a bottle of rum sailing towards his lips.

"Hey Jayjay gimme some! You've had it for forever!"

"Whatever mate – can you catch?" The words tumbled gleefully from Shendu's host.

"Don't you dare…or we're totally through!"

"Clara you get it!"

"Throw it in the sea Jay!"

"Fucking try it you little bastard!"

Clara, the nearby plump girl, dove forward and seized the bottle for herself. "I ain't lettin' you prats waste good rum. Not when it's fucking freezing out here."

"I don't feel it," Valmont rejoiced, heart leaping like a thrown stone. "Don't feel a bloody thing."

"That's cos you're fuckin' high." She remarked superfluously before taking a swig.

"And there's nothing to feel!" Declared another of the spidery slags across the neon painted gloom of Brighton pier.

Clara smiled. "There's that too." She tasted her cigarette and took up the rum again. "Still, rum warms the bones." But her stiff little fingers looked like they'd been cold for so long that it scarcely mattered.

Valmont knew he was cold too. Shendu could feel it inside him, as he stared with him hard at the distant bright lights, until the shattered neon segments danced with each other and were his world. Everything was numb, like he had been knived repeatedly and left for dead. His skin was bone white; his breath was a frosty puff petering into the darkness. But here, the British night cold was just another layer of skin, and the cigarette smoke was just the air. Discomfort was laced languidly into this life, as the midnight streets were laced with middle-aged perverts. Hatred, it seemed, was just another of the sparse collection of street rats to helplessly cackle along with.

Presently, Shendu found his vessel following the deadpan gaze of Clara, out towards the main road, where the streets had been pummeled by the nightlife, sprinkled with fags and then left. At some point earlier - in the rush of middle-class glitter-fraught students, running in heels with their umbrellas high - it had rained, and now the concrete sparkled under the pastel swill of the lit city. Shendu guessed it was around 3 in the morning; for the streets were mostly void of life, save for the odd lost drunk sauntering down the middle of the road, coolly observed by the nests of night dwellers tucked into every cranny all the way up the vast street. Now that the glitzy girls and boys had returned to their warm homes, the silence was theirs too ruin.

"Marian's back." Remarked Clara, gesturing with the remainder of her cigarette.

Out of nowhere it seemed, an impish figure was scuttling briskly towards them, hair short and wily, a low-cut dress-shirt engulfing her so that her tiny figure seemed to slip away like a pear-drop. The remains of fishnets capered up her porcelain legs in an abstract, oddly beautiful yet completely chance pattern.

And suddenly a tsunami of excitement raged within Valmont; it thrashed his insides and bubbled up his throat; it rendered him winded, like a punch, or sudden drowning.

Marian disappeared amongst a few of the men, at which point Valmont's back had snapped straight, eye burrowing franticly into the nest of dark lean backs. And then she was at his side, having slid onto the bench in such a way that would never be fathomed, Shendu knew, by mortal or demon, no matter how many times he might replay this memory.

"Start without me why don't you." She chirped. And if her voice hadn't told all, her appearance compensated. This girl was too young for the streets. Her face was small and frail, and the artificial light bled so serenely over her domed, puerile cheeks, pooling beneath the canopy of her little cherry pout. Her strangely jaded amber eyes observed Valmont coolly from the pale valleys of her pixie-sculpted face. They suggested she was a long term character of this life, and had long since given up swamping her little face any make-up they should care to steal.

Before Valmont could respond, she had turned away, and was holding a needle elegantly up to the light. Both phantom mortal and dwelling demon watched as she studied the light-licked instrument with careful compassion, snub nose rising level with it expectantly, before sliding it into her swanlike wrist.

Then she turned back to Valmont and smiled benevolently, by which point the turmoil within the man had settled into a mud-thick bliss. Without warning, she launched herself into his lap, her body landing limply like a washed up fish. Shendu watched with smarmy fascination as Valmont's hands burrowed into her hair and slid idly over the exposed skin of her shoulder blades.

For a while she just lay there, like she was dead.

But she was so warm, like a furry pet, under the freezing, cloud-skinned black sky, where everyone gabbled and wavered through the dappled colors on ghostly currents of sea breeze. Valmont threw his head back and laughed at the stars, overflowing with happiness.

"Hey has that fucking fool in the black BMW buggered off yet?" One of the girls twittered. "I was gonna work across town tomorrow night."

"Don't go alone hun. Flipknife, you headed that way tomorrow?"

"Yeah, but not with that slag."

"Hey-"

"Kidding, kidding…erm yeah, whatever."

"Sod it I'll go on my own. Your ugly mug'll scare the punters away for sure."

"What punters, seriously Lindsay, you're a fuckin moose!" Laughter.

"Best tits on any moose I've ever seen." Threw in Valmont, dropping his head back to ogle over the bench.

"Rumor goes the guy's fresh out of prison. Went down for knifing his pregnant girlfriend when he was 15."

"Then he'll pay well! The guy's probably starved of sexual contact." More Laughter.

"Or he'll pull a knife on you and hack you to pieces behind a dumpster."

"So it's 50/50." Valmont seized the attention of the group. "Die horribly or get paid seriously well. You know what? You should risk it. This may be the best bit of business you'll ever get; God knows none of the other whores'll be risking their skins in that area when Mr Stabby's on the prowl, so there's your competition gone. And all you've got to lose is your shitty little life."

And so followed an eruption of laughter and praise and 'here here's, and then the girl-child shivering euphorically on his lap abruptly peeled herself from him, and was scampering into the night.

"Marian!" Valmont tore from the bench, stupid grin still gouged into his sharp cold face. "Where you going you silly little tart? Get your arse back here!"

She skipped and turned, shimmering at him momentarily like the best part of a scrawny old party ribbon.

"Imma jump off the pier tonight."

And then that sliver of beauty was lost to the sparrow-fine bones of her back, and she was flying on.

"Catch me if you can!"

"HAH!" Valmont's legs burst into life and were presently thundering below him. "HAHAHAHA!"

The gaudy lights were choking in the impending expanse of gloom as he ran and ran, further and further towards the sea, his friends heckling behind him. He smiled and shut his eyes as he pummeled the concrete that seemed to go on forever, before it slipped into the barely visible line of the horizon half a mile away. Marian was like a far off dove, her white skin besmirched by the darkness, her movements reduced to the soft, fuzzy trembling of some negligible little life form. From his phantom host, Shendu could distinguish the velveteen feeling of possession, and knew that the mortal sought to capture his little street mouse on this wave of effervescent intoxication, though it remained unclear as to whether he wanted to stop her, or blissfully jump off with her.

The pier was long, and for all his adolescent strength, Valmont felt his hammering legs slow to steady stabs against the concrete, and the swing of his muscular chest grow heavier, until he was scudding to a graceless stop.

Jingling with his finery, he looked around at Brighton, suddenly at some sort of a loss. The remains of the lights swung idly back and forth, and still the vast gloom of the pier didn't end. The shuddering form of Marian was still hanging around at a ridiculous distance, and in another direction one of the slags was conversing lewdly with a middle aged acquaintance. Back on the bench, Clara sat, resigned, stiffly responding to a group of male newcomers who had surrounded her small fat form. Many of the original men seemed to have gone, though one or two could perhaps be made out in yet another direction, kicking the curb lazily or scouring the landscape for suitable whores – any trashy time-killing to spend up the remainder of their trip.

Valmont wobbled a little, and realized that this feeling of redundancy was as widespread as the flecks of his sparse, wasted friends. He thought about continuing to chase Marian, but the pier was so vast and his body so heavy, and Marian so fickle and sickeningly meaningless to him.

"Is this it, Valmont?" Shendu echoed wistfully.

From somewhere within this youthful portrait of the past, the Valmont of the present emerged, and responded quietly.

"It would seem so."

"And what of Marian?"

The crimelord swallowed hard. "What of her?"

"Did she jump?"

"No."

"Then what became of her?"

Valmont shook his head tentatively. "She buggered off in her own time."

The demon spirit sneered with interest. "And when was this?"

"I- I don't know. She just – drifted away. Probably got picked up by a better paying pimp than she had before. And what's it to you, anyway? Who the fuck do you think you are, you miserable tyrant?"

Shendu merely smirked a little and listened to the ghostly black waves caressing the shore, as he waited patiently for Valmont's anger to subside.

"It is rather pleasing here." The demon eventually uttered. "Even if you were as worthless as ever."

"Pleasing?" Valmont spluttered. "It was fucking euphoric."

"And if your little medicines weren't enough, you had your _true love._"

Valmont looked down at the filth-flecked ground. "I had no love in me. I was so cold back then."

Shendu gave a sly chuckle. "And just as bitter I daresay."

"Get out, Shendu. Get out or I swear to God I'll make you regret it."

"Oh really?"

"I'll make sure you never achieve your goal!" Valmont burst out. "I'll fucking end you, even if it means ending myself! Fucking OUT!"

Brighton bled neon rivulets as the walls of the memory shuddered. Valmont peered around; Clara was still fobbing off the surrounding gang with arbitrary crap; a couple of familiar faces loomed far off, cigarettes poised between long spectral fingers. And the feeling of redundancy ached faithfully in his legs. Taking a big pointless breath, he decided to run on a little longer.

All of a sudden, a lightening chasm clamored down the sky, cracking the memory with a mighty roar. Within seconds everything was ripped away. The tangy colors were quickly gone, and like the skin of a giant wound being torn right off, Valmont was met with something raw and horrifyingly painful.

"_GAHHHH!"_

He was in a cold, dark box, screams clattering around as he shook fiercely on the hard floor, sweat searing his flesh. So cold, so cold…So cold he thought his skin was being dragged over his head, and the cracks in the cell walls were not snug enough to keep the fear out. He could see it seeping in to get him…

"_AAAAHHHHHH! NY AAAAAHAAAHAAAAA!"_

And then a Russian guard was barking at him beyond the bars of his steel cage. "_Molchat!_"

"PLEASE!" Gushed Valmont, sweat and tears rampant as he threw himself against the bars. And like a burst damn, the memory was suddenly flooded with the regurgitated ends of every rotting plea and beg and scream the man had ever known. All for one more dose with the needle.

"_MOLCHAT!_" And through his confines a fist came flying and struck his cheekbone. Valmont found himself sprawled on his back, convulsing violently in the intense cold, which seemed to be burning him alive.

And time passed. Those hours had felt like a thousand, and the memory saw the damage of several thousand hours pass in a moment, the accumulated cold, fever, nausea and loneliness gutting him mercilessly as memory peeled those long hours away quickly and violently, one after the other. Like the exposed flesh after a skinning, Valmont writhed in an inferno of pain, until the cold against his bare skin cauterized him, and he was frozen on the floor, staring down at the tiles that had fossilized in his memory, as the first light of dawn or dusk slid down the wall from one high, remote little window. The roar of hunger and nausea set inside him, as if he had been born starved. Silence struck, like it was all he'd ever known of. The guard had long since gone, barren company having dribbled inconsequentially into barren absence, as if he had never been anything but hideously alone.

A round of footsteps echoed far away, like the toneless shots of an execution from even further.

But the base three and a quarter flooring tiles remained his world, and the ghost of thought flew by; whether he had ever had a life at all, or just this one picture tacked across his eyes, while the sound was muted and his systems all turned off.

A voice emerged, like a crack in his living hell slithering towards him. And whose contemptible, downbeat drawl should it be but that of the famous Captain Black. Valmont didn't look up to confirm it.

"This who I think it is?"

A heavily accented companion piped up all too eagerly. "Full name: Jasper Joules Valmont. Jayjay to his friends. His friends being every scumbag who's turned the CIA's head for the past 10 years. Hails from London; ran away from his boarding school at 18 and started living on the streets, during which period he formed one of the most notorious street gangs in British culture and was known to have had sexual relations with a 14 year old girl. Suspected to have committed at least 400 misdemeanors and 200 felonies since then, mainly in thievery and drug possession, but also including several accounts of manslaughter and dealing in firearms. We also have evidence to link him to a further 4 accounts of murder of the same nature-"

"Thanks Egor, I'm familiar enough with this one. Valmont and I have crossed paths more than once over the years." The Bald Eagle shifted restlessly; Valmont could detect that trademark parody of pragmatism without even having to peel his gaze from the floor. "So what's he doing here?"

"Pursuing the Eurasian opium line, it looks like. The local police intercepted a barge carrying ten thousand kilos of opium in an industrial town near Yakutsk two weeks ago not four miles from here. Valmont here was found aboard a smaller industrial vessel on the same canal the other night."

"Any others with him?"

"Two other males. Both locals, as far as we could tell at the time. Valmont was with them on the roof of the vessel, wrapped up in sacking and high as a kite."

"Where are the other two men being held?"

"They... were dead before the police arrived. We initially assumed it was drug-induced heart failure, but from what I can remember of the autopsy, it was concluded that they just froze to death. It was minus thirty five degrees that night."

"And where was the vessel headed?"

"Nowhere. No-one was steering. All just lying there on the roof, like they were ready to become corpses." Egor paused, and for a minute or so the default silence was only broken by this new pair of breaths. "Jesus Christ, look at him…the look on his face reminds me of my sealing years."

"Withdrawals, I'm assuming."

"Well it's either that or hell on earth."

"Get outta here, Egor. You've got a long journey ahead of you and the weather ain't getting any better."

"You sure you'll be ok here on your own? I don't want the power to go out on you."

"I'll be fine. The snowstorm last week was a bigger bitch than this one and the power held up just fine. Still, I think I'll give the communication systems a rest for tonight, delighted as the CIA fat cats will be to hear that we've found Monty Blue-Eyes. I'll get onto the British embassy tomorrow."

"It's gonna be a long night." A dying string of footsteps, and Egor was gone.

A sigh from Captain Black.

A brisk flurry of his booted feet.

An impatient rattle of the coffee machine, a growl, three quick paces –

And that nauseatingly predictable stare was undoubtedly back on his stone form.

"Valmont."

Silence stayed. He had no incentive to look up, not if he was only going to meet with that bitterly resonant holier-than-thou glare.

An irate intake of breath, and Black was taking another stab at the silence.

"Valmont."

Again, he gave him nothing. And Valmont might have thought it was over, until the cell was suddenly wrenched open, eliciting a horrendous percussion of clatters.

"VALMONT."

Valmont felt himself shake as his tails of solitude were dangerously roused. He stared harder at his tile world, shielded by his long white fringe.

Black sighed. "Jasper Valmont I'm placing you under arrest on behalf of the United States government. And now that that's out of the way we're gonna talk about the Eurasian line, and you're gonna tell me everything, because it's just you and me and we've got a lot of time to kill. Understand?"

Valmont could feel the Captain's breath on his face. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt that, and he knew that if he looked up now he'd find the face of that insufferable agent just inches away from him.

"I SAID" Growled Black, seizing his hair and shoulder and forcing him to meet that inimitable face for the first time in several years. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

Valmont's mouth wavered open; a voice emerged, but it cracked immediately. In the ensnarement of those brutal warm arms, Valmont shattered; tears were suddenly streaming down his face, and all he could voice were sobs and wails.

Through his mess of tears, Valmont could make out the blur of those furious green eyes widening a little with surprise, amidst one or two blinks to moisten them with that noble hatred. And over his sobs came the impatient, frustrated, embarrassed grunts of "stop it" and "have some fucking self-control", which only grew more aggressive the louder he sobbed.

"Stop it now!" Barked Black, viscously manhandling Valmont to meet his glare. "Look at me; you fucking STOP IT."

Valmont tried. Furiously he heaved up his tears, fought mightily to stifle his sobs. But the torrent of tears kept coming, and the huge, silence-snapping sobs stole his breath every time. He was desperate to stop; He _had_ to. He couldn't take being reprimanded like a child by none other the Augustus Black. Augustus Black the cop, Augustus Black his arch rival. But Black was a person first; his hands were warm, and his eyes like roaring suns without the glaze of callous apathy to which Valmont was accustomed. The crimelord gasped for breath, desperate to regain control, but couldn't.

The Captain wrenched back his prisoner's sweaty white locks and pressed a hand to his forehead.

"_Jesus Christ_, you're burning up." The panic in the captain's voice quickly flowed to his hands. "Get up." He hissed as his strong arms seized the crimelord's torso and forced the man to his feet. Valmont's legs refused to cooperate, quickly giving out underneath him, but before he met with the hard floor, the brawny arms were preying upon him again, and with a monstrous swing of nausea he found himself over the fuming Captain's shoulder. The muscles underneath him shuddered, initiating another dreadful clamor of the cell door, and then he was watching the floor slide bumpily away, its dirty puddle of light swiftly lost to the darkness of a long corridor.

"NO!" He screamed, kicking wildly. The butch arm of Black quickly clamped down on his legs, but he continued to thrash around as he was carried away, terrified of the next indignity he was sure to suffer.

"Keep….Still.." Strained the Captain, clawing fiercely at the wild limbs of his captive, before a doorway flashed past and he slammed him down. Valmont stared at the porcelain beneath him, and the grimy white tiles on every wall, and the bleak bowed crowns of showerheads surrounding his cowering form.

Captain Black was back in the doorway, eying him stiffly. "Cool yourself off. You're like a fucking furnace."

But Valmont shook his head in horror. "N..n-no. M-m fre-eezing.."

Black growled. "Get on with it. I ain't losing my job because you're content with letting your ass burn alive."

Valmont said nothing, shaking harder.

Black fumed and drew closer, hands clamping into fists around Valmont's shirt. Teeth gritted, he hissed with an almost moving sincerity, "Don't make you undress you, Valmont."

Valmont blubbed helplessly, begging the Captain with his eyes. A long silence followed, in which Black's furious, soulful eyes ground into Valmont, and Valmont could only gaze back with wraithlike despair.

Eventually, Black's glare reached the limit of its intensity.

"_Bastard."_

Valmont quickly bowed his head and clutched his sides as the inevitable attack ensued. His clothes were being violently ripped away – shirt wrenched over his head, fly buzzing open, jeans and underwear hauled down. Suddenly the cold air was feeding off all of him, and he kept his face buried in his arms and his eyes squeezed tightly shut as Black forced him under the showerheads. A brutal kick in the ribs, the squeal of a dial, and then the torrent was raging down upon him.

"_NYYAAAHAHA!"_

Admist the roar of the freezing cascade, footsteps were walking away.

As his back was furiously bludgeoned, he used the last of his strength to inch his brittle legs towards his torso and shakily wrap his arms around himself. This freezing torrent would never stop; for there was nobody in the world to come and turn it off. He was going to die on this very floor, leaking helplessly from every opening, staring at the plughole with his head burrowed in his limbs as the water continued to beat him, long past his death.

He didn't die. Of course he didn't fucking die, he thought bitterly as the shower melted around him and he found himself further suffering the solidity of his big broad frame; in a swoop of memories he was kicked and prodded and crammed though doors, scenes melting and reforming in a matter of seconds, but his own miserable consistency never relenting. Foreign cops brandishing cattle prods, fellow convicts pulling his hair and laughing, some asshole circling him with a gun when tied to chair in some criminal hell hole; heavy flesh punctured and welted, rankness growing on him like fungi…

Shoved in the trunk of a car, his head slamming into the leather with every jolt, the sudden swarm of air that ravished him as his spent, semi-conscious body was hurled over the 7 bridge….

And his bitter crawl up the muddy bank 15 minutes later, arms and knees buckling as he burst into exasperated tears, face toppling into the mud.

"STOP IT!" He screamed, ridiculous as it was, because the demon he was screaming to was inside him, ravaging his thoughts before he voiced them.

And then the thought that had struck him at this very point in time was suddenly washed up with him: His piteous howl to nobody, _why am I still alive? _

But forever in his head, Shendu was chuckling mercilessly.

"Crying hysterically in front of Captain Black?"

Valmont panted, gaze resigned on the river mud mulching over his palms. "It was a long time ago."

Shendu sneered. "But not that long ago, I suspect?"

Valmont gave way to a bitter splutter. "Not long enough to forget, no."

Rooted miserably in his own memory, Valmont became aware of a peculiar sensation; a weight inside him dribbling away, as if that monster Shendu had snuck upstairs to the surveillance room, and was back to inspecting his dark treasures, this time more intimately than ever before.

"Mmm, no…not _nearly_ long enough."

Swallowing hard as the spectral mud in his airways diminished, Valmont clawed for his most sincere voice, and put it to use as productively as he could.

"Please don't do this anymore, Shendu. I want to go to sleep."

From this curious new distance, the demon responded just as sincerely.

"But there is still so much left to see."

And while the tyrant smiled, Valmont screwed his eyes shut, anticipating the next cruel surge of memory.

**You'll be pleased to know that the angstfest won't last forever. This was ridiculously intense, and I'm toning it waaaay down in the next chapter. For a bit :P**


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